TKO COO and President Mark Shapiro has revealed that they knew the price they wanted for the UFC’s broadcasting deal was going to be too high for their current partner ESPN.
Paramount+ paid over $7 billion to secure the rights to air UFC events for the next seven years from 2026 onwards, essentially more than doubling the amount ESPN had paid back in 2018.
According to Shapiro, ESPN had been interested in still having some involvement with the UFC, but the asking price was just too steep for them.
“I can’t say enough about ESPN,” Shapiro said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology conference. “They were an extraordinary partner on the UFC. A lot of our growth and the fact that we’re mainstream and we’re so young and we’re so diverse, so global, has a lot to do with the marketing machine that is the Walt Disney Co. Period, end of story. They are the definitive authority and stage when it comes to sports.
“Having said that, we knew they were not going to be there at the price we wanted for UFC. While we had conversations and across the timelines, there was a time where they might have come in for some of the numbered events, which are the pay-per-views, or some of the Fight Nights or all of the Fight Nights, they were always in the mix and they wanted to be in the mix and Bob Iger and Jimmy Pitaro are huge fans of the UFC and they have a great personal relationship with us and with Dana White. We never ruled them out, but we pretty knew they weren’t going to be able to get to a 2X [price], and that’s what we were setting our sights on.”
While ESPN weren’t in the race, Shapiro said that many others were, but Paramount+ combined with CBS proved to be the best fit.
“We set our sights talking to everybody else,” Shapiro said. “From Warner Bros. Discovery to a lesser extent Apple, Amazon in a big way, YouTube in a big way, Netflix in a big way, DAZN in a big way. There were a lot of players at the table.
“I’m not saying all of them were at the number we ultimately received and signed or that they all would have taken the entire package, because there’s a lot of volume when it comes to 43 fights and then you have The Contender Series and Ultimate Fighter and our library. Only a few vehicles can take that kind of a load and ultimately we pivoted this to CBS and Paramount+ and we’re really excited about the opportunity there.”
